Site Plan and Orientation

In our last post we outlined the site and the existing buildings. This post will just show the basic site plan and orientation of the new house. After this, we’ll get back into details…

The new house is sited as part of a group of buildings, with the existing house (to be converted into a studio and guest accomodation) and the barn. It is also oriented to take maximum advantage of the sun for light, passive solar heating, solar thermal water heating and solar photovoltaic generation. This means ignoring all the traditional reasons for house orientation on the island like alignment with roads or, more recently, lake views.

The site plan

The house is also placed where the soil is thinnest – it’s only 10 inches to bedrock in this area, whereas further down the slope, the soil is deeper and better for growing. That said, we will be making a courtyard kitchen garden in the triangular space created by the lines of the stone wall that runs along the pathway alongside the old house, the west side of the new house and the barn, but this will have deep raised beds.